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Leaf lover

Repeating what I have said elsewhere but find myself irritated by the media seemingly wallowing in the negativity of it all.
Our government should set a date for when they will remove this Coronavirus lockdown and let those who will probably be least affected by the virus get on with their lives.
We need a date to give people hope and on asking my 22 year old stepson, he advises 1st of May this year.
Meanwhile for me at 71 I am happy to self isolate for as long as I want.
What date would you set?

Registered

If things continue as projected then the end of April looks likes a plausible time to start relaxing things.
But it does depend on these next few weeks - if people start relaxing too soon the genie will pop out of the bag again.

Registered

I'm hoping for June, but it may last to September unless some new technology allows people out sooner. Maybe this new mobile phone app together with anit-body testing but all new technologies can introduce unforseen problems so will need proper testing before full roll out.

Premium Member

We can be pretty certain that the Government will want large numbers of people out and back at work as soon as possible.

That might be before many people are comfortable with the idea, but I suspect as soon as the NHS has the capacity to cope with whatever cases will present, then we’ll be asked to go and save the economy, and with it more lives.

Registered

Testing, testing, testing !.
If more testing was done, we could at least START to plan ahead.
We can’t fight an enemy we can not see.
Attack from above with isolation and pick at it from the bottom with testing.
We are running and hiding in our houses at present.
Dr. John Campbell has a fantastic daily update on YouTube.

Leaf lover

I am going with the assumption I will catch the virus, just a matter of when and if we expect people to obey the guidelines we should have a date to wait for until it is time for the off. We are not preparing for a possible virus in the future, it is with us now. Let's get on with it.

Registered

Testing, testing, testing !.
If more testing was done, we could at least START to plan ahead.
We can’t fight an enemy we can not see.
Attack from above with isolation and pick at it from the bottom with testing.
We are running and hiding in our houses at present.
Dr. John Campbell has a fantastic daily update on YouTube.

Testing and contact tracing will be excellent tools if we can get back into containment mode, and also useful in helping key workers to get back to the frontline more quickly. The new antibody test (if it works) will also be valuable in determining how far through the outbreak we are.

However, I fear people expect too much of testing as an exit strategy from lockdown. The Germans are doing 10x more than us, and it would still take them 3 years to test their population just once (and you have to test over and over again).

Unless you can do literally millions of tests a week it's still looking for a needle in a haystack.

Registered

I am going with the assumption I will catch the virus, just a matter of when and if we expect people to obey the guidelines we should have a date to wait for until it is time for the off. We are not preparing for a possible virus in the future, it is with us now. Let's get on with it.

Health systems seem to start to break when hospitalised cases reach <0.05% of the population. (The UK is currently at around 0.02%). You need to have extraordinarily high levels of asymptomatic or mild cases if this pandemic is going away anytime soon.

Our scientists currently suggest 10% of cases need hospitalisation, although this number is falling. If that is the case, approx 150,000 have had this in the UK, about 0.2% of the population.

If we assume the scientists are way off and only 1% need hospitalisation; then 2% of the population have had it.

Only if we assume 1 case in a thousand needs hospitalisation do we get to a number (22%) which means we are any more than barely over the start line. We can hope this is the case, but nowhere in the world do the numbers suggest this.

In short, we aren't getting back to full normal for a very long time. It took 2 months of deep lockdown in Wuhan, and even now they are extremely cautious about what happens next.

Registered

I am going with the assumption I will catch the virus, just a matter of when and if we expect people to obey the guidelines we should have a date to wait for until it is time for the off. We are not preparing for a possible virus in the future, it is with us now. Let's get on with it.

Registered

Testing and contact tracing will be excellent tools if we can get back into containment mode, and also useful in helping key workers to get back to the frontline more quickly. The new antibody test (if it works) will also be valuable in determining how far through the outbreak we are.

However, I fear people expect too much of testing as an exit strategy from lockdown. The Germans are doing 10x more than us, and it would still take them 3 years to test their population just once (and you have to test over and over again).

Unless you can do literally millions of tests a week it's still looking for a needle in a haystack.

Registered

The virus seems to be uniquely designed to create the maximum cognitive dissonance in people. On the one hand we have the majority of people, mostly young, who hardly notice being infected (but infect others) and on the other we have a smaller number for whom the experience is a nightmare, possibly leading to a very unpleasant death -- and that's not to mention the heroic NHS staff looking after them.

This creates the conditions for people to feel that they can take whatever attitude to it that they want to. Many feel that even if they get it they are prepared to take their chances with it.

It would be simpler if it were like Ebola - more than 50% chance of death in the most grisly way imaginable. I wonder what our lockdowns would be like if it were? Indeed I suggest that people generally behave as if it were. It would be much safer that way.

Leaf lover

Perhaps it is the eternal optimist in me but I was saying a few weeks ago that we will look back in a years time and wonder, what was that about!
Now I feel we are in the middle of madness.
Ah that's it. That is really how the virus attacks us.
Seriously, our government should set a date when the lockdown must end and we work towards that.
When should this lockdown end?

Registered

I dont expect a sudden end. It will likely be a very cautious slow return to how things were. The 2m rule will likely still apply for some months even when we get out of this and large gatherings probably not happen until next year. I can easily see a sizeable number of the population not emerging at all until a vaccine becomes available. We were at 50 deaths a day when we were told to stay home so nothing will happen until we are probably some way below that number. Its going to be a while!!

Whilst there is quiet but growing voice that the Coronavirus lockdown was a mistaken instruction, the level of fear generated by that move is looking to gridlock the unlocking of the lockdown.
So this slow start to unlock could last far longer than any of us ever have imagined.
Will it take an...

Ok, unfortunates on zero hours contracts and the unempolyed have very little chance of work in the forseeable future, young people at schools / Colleges / Universities are no longer receiving an education and hence being kept busy, lots are required to quarantine in an unregulated way...